


Day Three

by Lagerstatte



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lagerstatte/pseuds/Lagerstatte
Summary: On the third day, after Noct’s funeral, after the sun had set, Ignis sat down on the floor and went to sleep. He did not wake up again.Ignis woke up. He opened his eyes and looked at the green fabric of the tent ceiling. This was, he thought, a remarkably realistic dream. He hadn’t had lucid dreams since he was a very small child. It took him a few minutes to decide that it wasn’t a dream after all, at which he crawled outside without waking anyone, walked a little way from the haven, and cried his guts out.





	Day Three

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Ignoct Week challenge, for day 3: Simple: Sleep/Situational: Reincarnation/Time Travel AU
> 
> No beta but concrit welcome; thank you for reading!

Ignis stayed awake for three days solid after Noct died. There were things to do – arrange and attend Noct’s funeral not the least. He had to write down an account of what had happened, to the best of his understanding. And grieve, if there were time. The sun set then rose again like a revelation, once, twice, and he couldn’t see it but carried himself through it anyway. After a couple of days his body started to slow down. Thinking became difficult. Simple things became hard, but that was acceptable, because what reason did he have to excel any more?

On the third day, after Noct’s funeral, after the sun had set, Ignis sat down on the floor and went to sleep. He did not wake up again.

Ignis woke up. He opened his eyes and looked at the green fabric of the tent ceiling. This was, he thought, a remarkably realistic dream. He hadn’t had lucid dreams since he was a very small child. It took him a few minutes to decide that it wasn’t a dream after all, at which he crawled outside without waking anyone, walked a little way from the haven, and cried his guts out.

By the time he returned, shaky and feeling distinctly unsteady, he hadn’t made his mind up on what to do. Was he going insane, perhaps? Were his memories of those ten years a terrible nightmare, a dream blown far out of control? Or was it real? Was this the hallucination? The others were still asleep; sitting outside on one of the camp chairs he could see Noct’s form bundled up in blankets and his sleeping bag. He could see him breathing, if he concentrated. See him at all. Ignis checked his phone. It was three days after they’d set out from Insomnia. They’d just left Hammerhead for the first time. His eyes kept being drawn back to Noct, asleep in the tent.

He felt like a stiff breeze would blow him apart, like a dandelion head. Not even a stiff breeze – if moved too quickly he might shatter into a million irreparable pieces. He didn’t think he’d ever felt as fragile as this.

Hazily, he remembered that he’d used to cook breakfast in this time between him and everyone else waking. Should he do that? He remembered how much trouble they’d had getting Noct out of bed. He remembered how Prompto would wake next and come lean on the table to watch him cook. He remembered Gladio’s loud laughter and rough-housing. He remembered how happy they’d all been.

It hurt. It hurt like scraping his nails across a scab, across a sutured wound, breaking it open.

In the end he abandoned his stove and returned to the tent, crawling into Noct’s arms. The motion nudged Noct from deep sleep and he mumbled and tugged Ignis a little closer. Ignis pressed himself against him like he could sink into him, breathing in the scent of the detergent they’d used to use, the smell of the new tent and new sleeping bags, Noct’s hair products, morning breath. Why did it hurt so much? It didn’t feel very real. He didn’t feel very real. He kissed Noct, and Noct, half-asleep, kissed back. Then Noct’s eyes cracked open, and a little wider again when they caught sight of Ignis’ face.

‘Specs,’ Noct said, and the word broke Ignis’ heart, though he couldn’t say if it was from joy or grief. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ Ignis buried his face in Noct’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. ‘Go back to sleep.’

He half thought Noct wouldn’t, but in the end Noct closed his eyes and drifted back off. His sleeping body was a soft weight in Ignis’ arms, pliant and warm. His heartbeat was slow and steady. He was alive – wondrously, beautifully alive.

Ignis fell asleep cradling him.

Ignis woke up lying in his bed in his Insomnian flat. He picked up his spectacles from his bedside table and put them on to stare at the ceiling. Ten minutes later his alarm went off. That’s right, he thought as he switched it off, sitting up on the side of the bed. He’d always managed to wake ten minutes before his alarm.

He flicked through his phone. An email notification popped up, reminding staff of building work happening in the Citadel’s East Bridge Hall, and filming on the Verso Staircase. It was the year before they’d left to go to Altissia, and Insomnia’s fall, and Noct’s imprisonment in the Crystal. Almost a year – a year in three days.

Ignis got up and washed, hands attempting to put his hair up in a style it was too short for. He rifled through his wardrobe, finding all his favourite outfits he’d left behind and some he smiled at in faint embarrassment. His body felt odd, getting dressed. It was younger, he supposed, and well-fed, well-exercised. He looked in the mirror. The reflection did not look particularly like him, but rather a remarkable special effect in a technology show. The whole process felt like a slapstick comedy, waiting for the slapstick.

Well, what should he do now? If this were real and he were jumping back through time then the information he had on the future was extraordinarily valuable. If it were a strange hallucination, then, well. Maybe it’d be best to let it spill now and get the psychiatric help he clearly needed.

Only, what could he say and to whom? Regis had known about Niflheim’s treachery from the start. Noct had needed to die to bring back the sun.

Of course, he could try to save Luna and ease Noct’s pain. He could get curatives stockpiles and spread information on how to survive the ten year night. There was a lot he could do, but if the previous time had been any indication he only had a bare few moments to do it in.

He realised that his heart was beating much too fast. He felt ill, light-headed.

He was out of the door and in the elevator before he quite knew what he was doing. Noct’s flat was cleaner than he remembered it being. Noct, curled up in bed, was exactly as he remembered.

‘Noct.’ Ignis patted him, rolling him awake. ‘Noct. Noct.’ He kissed away the last of Noct’s sleepiness and clambered into his bed, dropping his jacket and waistcoat, tie and belt, in a heap on the floor.

‘Specs – Ignis, what the fuck?’

Ignis slipped his hand up Noct’s top, tugging it off him. ‘Please,’ he said. He mouthed at Noct’s neck and pressed his palm down on the growing bulge of Noct’s erection. Noct bucked up into it, gasping wetly even as he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.

They had sex three times more that day. By the fourth time, late at night, Noct was limp in bed, sobbing out his pleasure as Ignis sucked him off – the sight, sound, taste, and feel of him destroying the memories of awkward meetings in which he didn’t understand what was happening, and being scolded for not doing tasks he hadn’t known he was meant to do. 

‘Fuck, Ignis, fuck – please–’

His fingers tangled in Ignis’ hair were weak, trembling. They tightened as he came and Ignis licked him through his orgasm, lapping at his cock even as it softened and he pulled away.

‘Ignis. Ignis.’ Noct sounded like he could barely breathe. Ignis let himself be pulled up so they were face to face, not bothering to hide the fact that he barely could either.

They caught their breath together, sticky, more exhausted than sated.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’ Noct said, eventually. Ignis turned his head to look up at the ceiling.

‘I’m not sure anything is.’ It was a lie, because clearly something was wrong. People did not start falling back in time. Or if he were crazy, then that would be something wrong indeed.

‘I’ll get it out of you eventually.’

Ignis didn’t reply, but he thought:  _ I don’t think you will, Noct. _

They fell asleep soon after that.

Ignis woke up back in his room, though a quick glance around showed small differences. A couple fewer books. His  _ Aspidistra _ was a lot smaller. He sat up and checked his phone – a year back again. Ah. So it must be the act of falling asleep that caused him to jump.

He was – how old? His body was twenty. He wondered idly whether, by placing his thirty-two year self into his twenty year body, he had somehow destroyed his twenty year mental self, or if it was just being suppressed for the time being.

He got up, washed and dressed, and went to the first appointment on his phone timetable.

It certainly felt real. He did not think his imagination was good enough to recreate the whole of Insomnia. That, however, led him to the question of whether he tried to tell anyone what was happening. The time-traveller’s dilemma, the one done to death by sci-fi authors across the centuries. To try and change the future, or to not?

It was true that in the long-run everything had worked out. It was also true that there had been a great deal of unnecessary collateral damage. What was more important – to try and maintain their ultimate win, or to alleviate what pain he could and pray the end result remained the same?

He ignored the fact that the end result he was praying for was Noct’s death. He managed for about an hour, then had to excuse himself from his meeting with Noct’s representative from the press office. He spent the rest of the day waiting in Noct’s flat, and cooked five of Noct’s favourite meals. He had just enough time to freeze four of them before Noct got home.

Noct was in a bad mood, sulky and despondent, but Ignis swallowed down every urge to do something that might push him further away. That night he managed to avoid sleeping altogether, even as he was, sitting on the sofa with Noct’s head pillowed on his lap, dozing whilst the film they’d meant to watch played on in the background, muted.

The next day he’d feigned illness and then, not known what to do with himself, went home on his own. With no distraction he ended up thinking about being blinded, and Noct’s disappearance for ten years, and Noct’s death. To share his knowledge of the future, or to not? Without further information there was no way of knowing which was the better option.

He decided that the three days bathed in sunlight after Noct’s death seemed oddly unreal, but little else.

When Ignis woke, nineteen years old, he made up his mind. He persuaded Noct to call Regis, took the phone and locked himself in the bathroom so Noct could not eavesdrop, and told Regis everything. The words ended up spilling out, uncontrollable and not always making much sense, and Ignis had the distinct impression that he was acting a lot more like the Ninteen-Year-Ignis whose body he was in than himself, Thirty-Two-Year-Ignis. Regis still called him in for an immediate audience and had Ignis tell him everything again, slower. Ignis felt feverish. He left the council chamber four hours later, barely remembering anything, and was herded back to his flat by Noct and Gladio, who’d both been waiting outside.

‘No,’ he croaked, when they’d tried to get him to lie down. ‘I’ll fall asleep. No.’

He’d done it. For better or worse, he’d done it. And he laughed as he paced, because there it was – the perfect agony of being able to change the future, but travelling in the opposite direction to ever being able to know whether he’d achieved it or not.

He ignored Noct and Gladio’s worried eyes following him across the room.

If he fell asleep and woke up one year earlier, would Ignis still remain here in this time, and would Ignis be himself as he was now plus one day, Thirty-Two-Year-Ignis, or would Ignis be himself as he was meant to be plus one day, Nineteen-Year-Ignis with an odd gap in his memory? Was he splitting in two each time he fell asleep, creating twenty-two Thirty-Two-Year-Ignis’ in twenty-two streams of reality, and him representing the branch that was carrying on down through time, or was there only one Ignis in one reality that he was rewriting to replace himself once a year?

Who would wake up tomorrow in Nineteen-Year-Ignis’ body? The question bothered him.

It was absurd – how utterly absurd. He wanted to laugh more, but he was aware he was frightening Noct, and that wouldn’t do.

Later, after Gladio had left, Ignis tugged Noct towards his bed and spent a long time kissing him – his lips, the pulse-point in his neck, his shoulders and ribs and the insides of his thighs. He drew Noct close and rolled his hips in rhythm with Noct’s gentle thrusts, and kissed him again and again and again.

Regis didn’t get back to him before he fell asleep again.

Between eighteen to thirteen he resigned himself to begging sickness every day, realising very quickly that there were a lot of his old lessons he simply didn’t remember any more, and having to try and excuse that to his tutors was a nightmare not worth having. The trick worked equally well each time, because each time was new to everyone he needed to trick. The problem with begging off sick was that he no longer had an excuse to be around Noct.

At eighteen he followed Noct around anyway, and stayed up four nights without sleeping. It was useful, he thought blurrily as he watched Noct and Prompto game, that he was known for being such a stickler for rules. It made it so very easy to stretch that suspension of disbelief, and by the time it stretched to breaking point he’d be gone. Eventually Prompto left for the night. An hour later Ignis fell asleep on Noct’s bed, only moments after he came down Noct’s hot, wet throat, trying to forget that this would be the last time.

Ignis woke up and did exactly the same thing as he had as an eighteen year old, only without the fucking, and without Prompto. It was Prompto’s absence that ached like silence in an empty space. He felt guilty for being surprised by that.

Ignis woke after two days of no sleep to replace Sixteen-Year-Ignis, and, on realising Noct was away on a four-day school trip, went straight back to bed.

Ignis spent the days of Fifteen to Thirteen-Year-Ignis feeling guilty about that (because all logic suggested that he only had perhaps twenty to thirty days left), and managed to stay awake three days for each of those years, but ended up compounding the guilt with the vague sense of unease. Noct’s immaturity was becoming more and more obvious. It was also becoming a lot harder to justify to Noct’s various carers just why he had to be there. At fourteen he stole Noct right out of the Citadel for six whole hours, making sure to end their escape in a public library where he managed to fall asleep before they were caught.

It occurred to him when he woke up, thirteen years old, that if this were a branching time situation and he weren’t about to be replaced by himself of a few days ago, one year in the future, then he needed to inform someone of the future every time he woke. It also occurred to him that he was much less likely to be taken seriously as a thirteen year old child than as a twenty-something adult.

That day of being thirteen was a miserable failure, because he spent most of it on etiquette lessons, and Noct had been in a bad mood and unwilling to do much but sulk. Ignis refused to acknowledge that Noct’s bad mood might just have been caused by him being snappy at Noct’s childishness, and had watched him for the three hours he’d been allowed, then an extra four from sneaking into his bedroom and lying with him as he slept. He had meant to stay awake the whole night and see if Noct was in a better mood in the morning, but he hadn’t made it.

At twelve years old he sat and tried to teach Noct some basic mathematics. He gave up after twenty minutes and went back to his room to think.

Noct was ten years old. He was a child.

It felt absurd to realise that he hadn’t taken into account how Noct would be a child and not the Noct as Ignis remembered. Not surly, sweet, conscientious, adult Noct. Ignis sat on his bed, face tucked into his knees, and, swayed by his worn-out twelve-year-old body, cried. He wanted his Noct back. Why hadn’t he spent more time with him in those first few times? Why had he fallen asleep in the tent, that first time he’d woken? He wanted that back. He didn’t want a child Noct. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t fair.

He was losing Noct again, in small degrees.

He realised at some point, too, that he hadn’t seen Gladio in a while.

After a while he finished crying, wiped his face, and pinched himself several times to avoid falling asleep. He lay on the bed and wondered if perhaps he wasn’t moving back through his own life, but rather Noct’s life, or at least his own as it revolved around Noct. That would explain why he had skipped those ten years Noct had been in the Crystal. If that were indeed the case then he wasn’t quite sure what would happen when he reached beyond the point of Six-Year-Ignis. Perhaps he’d just stop existing.

Maybe it was for the best. He didn’t particularly want to relive his toddler and baby years.

He didn’t particularly want to relive these years either. Not when Noct was here, and yet not.

He wondered why this was happening at all.

He he hoped he’d done the right thing by telling Regis everything, back when he’d been nineteen, and that had been enough. Was there anything more he could do? He couldn’t think of anything. Had it done good, or bad? He’d never know, he supposed.

Between eleven and seven, the next five times Ignis fell asleep and woke, he managed only one day per year. He was so very tired. He woke tired and then woke again exhausted. His body was small, useless, wrong. Noct was wrong. The five days passed in a blur, each more dream-like than the last, and he wouldn’t have thought it before but it was remarkably easy to pass off as a child when he didn’t have the energy to speak. Only a vague stubbornness stopped him from just going to sleep halfway through the day, just to get it over and done with, even though he didn’t often see Noct and when he did Noct was only a very small child.

By the time he woke up, six years old, it was almost a relief.

He stayed awake and performing every perfunctory thing the people around him expected him to do, too tired to concentrate on doing it at a six-year-old’s standard, too tired to do it much better anyway. Four o’clock rolled around and at last he was allowed into Noct’s room. To play, apparently.

He tugged Noct straight to the bed. Noct obediently let him fold him up in his short arms and tuck them both under the covers.

‘Can I tell you a secret?’ Ignis said. This would be the last time.

Noct’s eyes were drooping but they focused on him all the same. He seemed remarkably relaxed to be held by someone he’d only met three days ago. He didn’t seem to mind being in bed before his bedtime either; Ignis smiled at that, just a little.

‘The secret is, I know the future.’ Ignis closed his eyes and thought about another Noct he’d held. He couldn’t tell if it felt like a long time ago, or unbearably short. ‘I do. And I know you’re gonna be – you’re gonna be amazing. You’ll grow up, and so will I,  and we’ll have so much fun together. We’re gonna travel the world. Fight monsters. Go fishing. Travel everywhere. And – and we’re gonna have the best friends in the whole wide world to do it with.’

Noct didn’t say anything. Ignis clutched him tighter. ‘So,’ he said, ‘so look forward to it. Enjoy it, because it’s gonna be amazing.’

He was crying. When had he started crying? He buried his face in Noct’s shoulder; his heart felt like it was breaking. Perhaps it was. Slowly, a little clumsily, Noct put his arms around him.

After a while he cried all his tears out. Then, wrapped in each other, on Noct’s soft bed, they fell asleep.

Ignis woke up the next morning.

Ignis did not wake up again.


End file.
